


Sleep Is For the Weak

by vulcanhighblood



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alien Biology, Gen, Good Person Mon-El (Supergirl TV 2015), Intervention, Querl Needs A Hug, Sleep Deprivation, Winn is confused, or at least Sleep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-13
Updated: 2020-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:54:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23127361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vulcanhighblood/pseuds/vulcanhighblood
Summary: Apparently Brainy is comfortable sleeping absolutely anywhere, anytime, even in the DEO. Winn, confused and concerned by this behavior, seeks Mon-El's advice.
Relationships: Mon-El & Winn Schott Jr., Querl Dox & Mon-El (Supergirl TV 2015)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 29





	Sleep Is For the Weak

**Author's Note:**

> So I found a prompt on tumblr and I had to write it.
> 
> The prompt:  
> "I bet Brainy falls asleep working all the time and Imra & Mon-El are used to it but it startles the hell out of some poor DEO guy (maybe Winn if he had something to do?) who came to work early and found a Brainy snoozing awkwardly on top of a half-dismantled computer or something"

God, Winn hated getting up early. He hated disappointing people even more, though, so he’d dragged himself in to the labs at ass-o’clock in the morning to finish up a prototype he’d been working on. As it was early, Winn wasn’t exactly firing on all cylinders. Perhaps that’s why it took him so long to realize it was _suspicious_ that the lights in the lab were on. He could have _sworn_ he’d turned them off when he left for the night, but… no, they were definitely on.

It’s true that Winn wasn’t the only person who used these labs, but it was _early._ Who on earth had gotten up even _earlier_ to work in the labs? No one sensible, that much was certain. Caffeine in hand, Winn considered grabbing something for whoever was already in, decided that sounded like too much effort this early in the morning, and figured he’d just give whoever it was a hard time, because _seriously,_ there was dedication, and then there was _‘this way mad scientist lies_ ’. Jeez. 

“Hey, who left all the lights on?” he demanded, striding in and glancing around for one of the lab-coated techs. Technically, he probably should have worn one too, but it wasn’t really his style, and he wasn’t about to go giving people ideas about trying to get him to wear any sort of uniform. He made suits for heroes, but it didn’t mean he wanted to be in restrictive gear himself, thank you very much. 

He didn’t see anyone in a lab coat running around conducting experiments, or even just staring blankly at a computer screen. Instead, he heard a soft _whuff_ of someone inhaling sharply, followed by a loud clatter. The noise drew his eye to the far corner of the lab where a dark-suited person with shockingly white hair was struggling not to fall out of their computer chair. It took Winn a second to recognize them, about as long as it took for the other Legionnaire to completely fall out of the chair and hit the floor with a muffled curse.

At least, Winn assumed it was a curse, considering Mon-El had been throwing the word ‘sprock’ around enough to make it sound like one. “Brainy, is that you?” he asked, moving across the room, not really sure if he was planning on checking on _him_ or whatever equipment had hit the floor. 

“Yes,” Brainy scrambled to his feet, glancing down at the floor, apparently also checking for stray tech. “I was working on…” he reached down, picked up a small item, and set it down on the bench. There were several scattered items on the workstation, all fairly incomprehensible to Winn, and he was almost certain they _hadn’t_ been there last night. “…this.”

“Mind if I ask what ‘this’ is?” Winn asked, then frowned as another thought occurred to him. “When did you get in?”

“I was working on a project last night and realized that I did not have sufficient materials on the Legion cruiser. Mon-El had previously offered access to DEO tech in order to achieve our mission objective, so I decided it would be more efficient to continue my work here,” Brainy said, which didn’t technically answer the question Winn had asked, but gave him an idea of what the answer might be.

“So you’ve been here all night?” Winn asked.

“Yes,” Brainy answered, turning back to his desk and arranging the weird devices in a pattern that didn’t seem any less scattered than before. “I must have fallen asleep.”

“Must have,” Winn agreed awkwardly. “Well, I’m going to get to work now…”

“Oh yes, as will I,” Brainy agreed, easing back into the chair that had dumped him on the floor only moments earlier. 

Well. That certainly was a dismissal if Winn had ever heard one. “Okay. Um. I guess, if you’re going to fall asleep here, maybe turn off the lights next time?”

Brainy shrugged noncommittally, not even bothering to glance at him. “I shall endeavor to do so.”

Winn had a feeling that was the most he was going to get, so he shrugged, wandering over to his own workbench. 

* * *

It didn’t take long for Winn to realize that Brainy was a _serial lab-napper._ What made it even more odd was the irregular hours. While it was hard to predict when the alien would be in the lab, it seemed like there was a high likelihood that Winn would, at some point, just find him draped over a workbench, like he’d just… shut down mid-experiment. Considering the fact that Brainy was supposedly part android, that seemed worrying. Was his battery _also_ failing, like the Legion cruiser’s had? 

It felt insensitive to ask Brainy about it, like it would be asking someone if they had a terminal illness. On the other hand, if Brainy really couldn’t keep his battery charged and he was just randomly shutting down, that would be a dangerous work environment for him and anyone else. As the days went by, Winn began taking note of the various times and locations he discovered Brainy asleep. The strangest location he’d found Brainy was lying half-in, half-out of some ductwork where he’d removed the plating of a system panel, rewired it for some godforsaken reason, and then _passed out._ To make it worse, he’d done so around _noon,_ in full view of about half a dozen techs, who had apparently made their peace with Brainy’s idiosyncrasies and had stopped waking him up when he snoozed on their workstations, instead choosing to work around him. Honestly, it was getting ridiculous.

So, Winn sought some advice. “Hey Mon-El, a word?” he called, snagging him before anyone else had the chance to catch his attention and dragging him down a hallway so he could ask his questions in peace. “What the hell is wrong with Brainy?”

Mon-El blinked. “Wrong?”

“Is his battery dying or something?” Winn demanded. “He’s… sleeping. Everywhere.”

Mon-El barked a laugh, tried to mask it with a cough, and then gave up on the charade when Winn fixed him with an irritated look. “He doesn’t have a battery. He’s got… I don’t know how to explain it, but he calls it a bioelectric system? I think his…” Mon-El made a vague gesture with his hands, “organic parts… power his electric parts…? I never really asked.”

Well that sounded cool and gross in equal measure, but also didn’t really address the root of the issue. “Okay, so he isn’t dying, good. So why is he sleeping everywhere, then?”

Mon-El shrugged. “He’s probably overworking himself again. We may need to do another intervention.”

 _Another_ intervention? Overwork? The man was sleeping in the middle of the day, that _hardly_ sounded like overwork to Winn. “You’ve got to give me more than that, Mon-El. What do you mean, overwork?”

Mon-El frowned slightly. “You haven’t noticed?”

“Noticed what?” Winn demanded exasperatedly. “I have a blue alien taking naps on my workstation, it’s been hard to notice anything _else_.”

“He’s been running those side missions with Imra,” Mon-El explained, “and he’s been working to repair the cruiser and get it space-ready. Plus he’s been helping out in the tech support section. He’s trying to anticipate what we might need and have it ready to go at a moment’s notice.” He shrugged. “It’s kind of his thing - running the numbers, predicting needs and meeting them before we even realize it’s what we needed. But…” Mon-El made a face, “Sometimes he stretches himself too thin. Thinks he can do everything himself.”

Winn snorted. “Ah yes, a hero complex. Can’t imagine where he got a thing like that.”

Mon-El gave Winn one of his signature _you’re not funny_ looks, then chuckled. “Yeah, well, sometimes, in the Legion, when things got bad, we would start finding Brainy asleep… wherever.”

Raising an eyebrow, Winn gestured for Mon-El to continue.

“He basically works until he can’t, and at that point, the exhaustion hits him _hard,_ and he just… falls asleep. It took us a few weeks to realize it the first time it happened, and after that-”

“So this has happened _more than once?”_ Winn demanded. 

“About every two years or so,” Mon-El confirmed. “Hey, when there’s a crisis, he wants to help. He just… doesn’t always recognize his own limitations.”

Winn sighed heavily. “Sounds like a few other people I know,” he muttered. 

“So, shall we stage an intervention?” Mon-El asked.

“How do you usually do it?” Winn asked. 

“The first time, we just locked him in his room for a day and told him to sleep,” Mon-El confessed. “We locked him out of the computers. He was…” he shuddered. “Not pleasant to be around for the next few weeks.”

“I mean, you did basically put him in time-out,” Winn pointed out. 

Mon-El shrugged. “He’d only been with the team for about five months at that point, we didn’t know him well enough to realize how… dramatic… he could be.”

“How did you manage that?” Winn asked, “I only needed to know him five _minutes_ to realize how dramatic he could be.”

Mon-El patted Winn’s shoulder condescendingly. “Yeah, you keep telling yourself that.”

Frowning a little at the implication that he had yet to scratch the surface of the genius Legionnaire’s penchant for drama, Winn pressed for further details. “So what _did_ you do?”

* * *

Querl jerked awake, not certain what had woken him. Sprock! He’d been in the middle of an important project, now was not the time to... he paused, mid-lament, to note a peculiar sensation. As he straightened in his chair, he felt something warm slip from his shoulders. He glanced behind himself, spying a blanket. Soft. Fleece. Unlikely to be standard issue in the DEO. As he turned from the blanket to face the workbench, he spied a plate with a sandwich, and a cup of coffee beside it. 

He pressed his lips together firmly. He knew what this was, and the sentiment behind it was _appreciated,_ but Querl had the populations of the universe at not one but _two times_ to worry about, he could sleep and eat _later._

The sandwich did look tempting, and it would be wasteful to leave it sitting on the workbench. 

With a sigh, he picked up the sandwich and began eating. 

Perhaps he _should_ get at least one proper nights’ sleep. It might help clear his mind. For the moment, however, he tugged the blanket up over his shoulders, shoveled down the sandwich, and turned back to his project. It wasn’t every day one adapted scientific technology to access the magical spectrum, but Querl had a strong suspicion they’d be needing to do so before this fight was over, and he intended to be fully prepared for such an eventuality. 

…perhaps he’d be more likely to successfully devise such a method _after_ a decent nap. 

The idea merited consideration.

**Author's Note:**

> This turned out longer than I expected, but I had a ton of fun writing it! I loved the mental image of Brainy just draped over random things or poking out of corridors or like, splayed across chairs just... snoozing away. Like a cat, you're not even sure that it's comfortable but he's _out like a light_ so it must be working for him.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed the mental image as much as I did!


End file.
